Avondale, Cincinnati

Avondale is a neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is home to the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. The population was 11,345 at the 2020 census. 92 percent of Avondale residents are African American and more than 40 percent are living at or below the poverty level. More than 77 percent rent housing. Two race riots began in Avondale in 1967 and 1968, which were part of the larger Civil Rights Movement and Black Power movement in the United States. The neighborhood is bordered by North Avondale, Evanston, Walnut Hills, Corryville, and Clifton. Source - City of Cincinnati Statistical Database Note North Avondale and Paddock Hills are within the same Census Tract from 1900-1970. North Avondale was officially designated a neighborhood in the 1970s. Population after 1970 was split from Avondale. During the 19th century Avondale was a rural suburb. Its settlers were mostly Protestant families from England or Germany. It is claimed that the wife of Stephen Burton, a wealthy ironworks owner, began calling the area Avondale in 1853 after she saw a resemblance between the stream behind her house and the Avon River in England. It was incorporated July 27, 1864, by Daniel Collier, Seth Evans and Joe C. Moores. Between the 1870s and 1890s, the community was plagued by burglaries, vagrants, public drunkenness, and brawling. Avondale was annexed by the City of Cincinnati in 1896. After streetcar lines were laid less affluent residents settled in the neighborhood; from 1920 until after World War II, 60% of Avondale was Jewish. It remained a closed neighborhood until the construction of the Millcreek Expressway in the 1940s, which displaced residents from the Black West End neighborhood. At that time realtors only permitted Black families to move into neighborhoods which already had a Black population, and Avondale had had Black residents since the mid-nineteenth century. After Black families began relocating to Avondale, it split into two increasingly distinct and separate North and South neighborhoods.